Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Monday, February 15, 2016

Ms. Lee said she wasn’t afraid of the two dissident tickets splitting
the potential opposition votes because she considered it a sign that
more members were ready to challenge the status quo... The Chief

Good point by Jia. All votes for either slate will count against Unity in this election without the confusion over the past 10 years.

Citing her opposition to top-down leadership and standardized testing, two dissident slates—the Movement of Rank and File Educators and the New Action Caucus—recently nominated Jia Lee to challenge United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.

Ms. Lee, a special-education Teacher at the Earth School in Manhattan since 2011, said the union’s leadership has often disregarded rank-and-file members in favor of political considerations such as adopting Teacher evaluations.

‘Give Teachers a Voice’

“It’s really about establishing some democracy within our union,” she said. “There’s very little in the way of giving Teachers voices in the decision-making that happens within our union.”

The 15-year veteran said she would do more to encourage parents to have their children opt out of Common Core-based standardized tests. After a campaign by parents and the New York State United Teachers, 20 percent of students statewide sat out the math and English exams last April. But in New York City, where the Teachers union advised parents to not withdraw their kids, the rate of opt-outs was less than 2 percent.

In 2014, she and other educators at her school refused to administer standardized tests to fourth- and fifth-grade students. Ms. Lee said she helped draft a letter and position paper to the DOE and got support from her Principal, but not her union. “They basically said I was on my own,” she said.

Francesco Portelos, a Staten Island educator and activist, is also running to unseat Mr. Mulgrew on the UFT Solidarity Caucus slate, which is advocating for school staffers who feel ignored by the Department of Education.

Both candidates—who are running slates seeking to also gain executive-board seats in May—face an uphill climb in mounting a significant challenge to Mr. Mulgrew. He was selected in 2009 to succeed Randi Weingarten, who departed the local to lead the American Federation of Teachers. The following year, he was elected over James Eterno by 41,521 votes to 4,075. He was re-elected in 2013 with 35,913 votes to 5,708 for MORE’s candidate, Julie Cavanagh. The New Action Caucus endorsed Mr. Mulgrew’s Unity Caucus that year.Critical of Wage Deal

Since Mayor de Blasio was elected, the UFT has developed a closer relationship with City Hall and his Schools Chancellor, Carmen Fariña. But MORE, billed as the UFT’s “social-justice” caucus, protested the contract reached between the union and the de Blasio administration in May 2014, saying that Teachers deserved raises more generous than were offered in the agreement.

Ms. Lee, a chapter leader for seven years, said the union should fight against the Teacher-evaluation system. “It feeds into the ed-reformers’ rhetoric of the bad Teacher, and which is part of a bigger agenda to basically bust our union and privatize the public-education system,” she said.

She testified last year before a U.S. Senate Committee that was debating the successor to the Federal No Child Left Behind law. She also proposed an unsuccessful resolution last year at a UFT delegate assembly to express “no confidence” in newly appointed State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.

Approximately 30 officer and executive-board positions are up for election, she estimated.

“The UFT is a democracy,” Mr. Mulgrew said in an e-mailed statement.

Unfazed by Split Challenge

Ms. Lee said she wasn’t afraid of the two dissident tickets splitting the potential opposition votes because she considered it a sign that more members were ready to challenge the status quo. She added that even if her campaign, which is driven by word of mouth and local organizing, didn’t propel her into the presidency, it would still be a success if it engaged less-active members.

“The true test of what we’re doing is really whether or not we’re able to help build our rank-and-file-led push within our union,” she said. “And if we can get more Teachers to feel empowered—to organize at the school level and within their communities and to have a voice—I think that is the true win.”

2 comments:

Thanks for asking. Fact is MORE would be doing fine without Norm Scott, a good sign of health. The difference in the work I had to do in ICE is massive. I pretty much have nothing to do with running MORE. I do no organizing since I don't work. I don't set up events or do social media or produce leaflets. I do some running around as an errand boy and in the elections I handle the petition work. All I have to do is sit at home and blog. I am also a critic of MORE internally. I am not always listened to but I try. I think some of my advice in moving to local organizing is being followed though at a slower pace than I would have liked. Empowering people to do their thing without overly central control seems to have been a breakthrough from the early days when people were just getting to know each other and were paralyzed at times in waiting for "instructions." I would say that after the difficulties of a year and a half ago, over the past year MORE has righted itself. Most people stuck it out and no matter what the complaints saw that the 3 years spent trying to put every group in the same room should not go to waste by splitting into fragments. Even the point about holding firm until New Action, inevitably, broke with Unity is working out. The hope is that they will keep their identity but also join MORE and help build it like ICE and TJC have done - though TJC didn't stay as a separate group. There are still some blocks and factions in MORE but I see that as a good thing so different than Unity. The MORE bylaws are designed to control the ability of one block to gain too much control and the democratic structure of 6 month steering committee elections with 1 year term limits is fluid enough to allow new room for new voices to grow.

Comments are welcome. Irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted, as will all commercial links. Comment moderation is on, so if your comment does not appear it is because I have not been at my computer (I do not do cell phone moderating).

UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.